Hurricane Harvey has cause massive flooding in Houston and surrounding areas, forcing thousands of people from their homes.
The storm has also prompted its own share of hoaxes and rumors – most noticeably the viral tweet claiming sharks are swimming on the flooded Houston interstate.
A Dublin, Ireland-based blogger named Jason Michael recently tweeted an image appearing to show a shark swimming down the flooded roadway. As of Monday afternoon, the image has been retweeted almost 26,000 times.
But, as the Houston Chronicle reports, this isn’t the first time the phony photo has been shared. It also went viral after the city experienced flooding in 2015 and has cropped up in other flooded places in recent years.
As myth-debunker site Snopes explains:
“The same image has been recirculated several times over, typically localized to some big city in the United States that has just experienced a hurricane or other weather event producing heavy rains and floods. Its most recent iterations assigned it to Houston after heavy rains pounded portions of Texas over Memorial Day weekend in 2015, Daytona Beach after Hurricane Matthew approached Florida in October 2016, and Houston again in August 2017 after Hurricane/Tropical Storm Harvey caused massive flooding throughout the city.”
The real image of the shark apparently comes from a 2005 issue of Africa Geographic. You can see the real photo here.
According to the Chronicle, other storm hoaxes have included a viral story that the Office of Emergency Management was shutting off water service in Houston, various photos of alligators roaming the streets and another social media post listing a fake number for the Texas National Guard.
Believe it or not, this is a shark on the freeway in Houston, Texas. #HurricaneHarvy pic.twitter.com/ANkEiEQ3Y6
— Jason Michael (@Jeggit) August 28, 2017